Your Gmail and ads. And the warning on Claude mods
Hi! Two stories today, hand-picked, with sources we actually read. One is about your Gmail and the ads Google may show. The other is about Claude Code mods, which are in every video but come with a warning almost nobody mentions.
Listen to this issue · 5 min of audioSynthetic voice narration. Full text and sources are below.
You know when you mention a trip and, soon after, a hotel ad shows up? On 10/16, Google changed its privacy policy on a point that touches this. Before, the text said it would not show personalized ads based on what is in your Drive, Gmail or Google Photos. Now it adds: “unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads”.
The Verge explained the effect on 10/23. If you connected Gmail, Drive or Photos to Search through Personal Intelligence, a feature that uses your data to give more tailored answers in AI Mode, you may start seeing ads tied to that content. According to the text, advertisers do not get your emails or details that identify you, such as your name and email, and there are no ads based on sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health.
What it changes for you
Nothing changes on its own: per the text, it only applies if you choose to share that data. But if you connected Gmail to Search to get more useful answers, the price may include more personalized ads. If you run a business, your email holds quotes, contracts and customer conversations, and it is worth deciding calmly whether that is worth it. To undo it, The Verge points to disconnecting apps from Personal Intelligence or turning off Personalized Recommendations on the Search Services Personalization page of your Google account. Ad settings live in My Ad Center, which the policy itself mentions.
Our take
In 15 minutes, open the Search Services Personalization page and My Ad Center, see what is on and turn off what you do not really use. Connecting work email to a new feature deserves your decision, not the default.
⚠️ Limits: we tested nothing: The Verge describes the effect from the policy text, which does not detail how it works in practice. We also do not know whether Personal Intelligence is already on your account or in Brazil, and page names may appear translated.
Claude Code mods: customize the screen, but read the warning
What happened
You know when a video says Claude “just got” a superpower? Mods are in many videos as news, but they appear in the Claude Code changelog, the official list of changes, in version 2.1.287, from 10/1. The feature is real; it just is not from today.
A mod is a plugin, an add-on, that changes how Claude Code, Anthropic’s coding assistant, looks and behaves. It can add a panel beside the conversation, a band above the text field, or hold a risky command and ask first. Anthropic shows three examples: token-weather, a “weather forecast” of how much of the conversation is used; blast-radius, which holds dangerous commands, such as deleting folders, and shows what would change; and replay-theater, which replays the edits of the last turn. You can ask for a mod in plain language and Claude writes it. On Latent Space, someone who has used mods for weeks says that “You Should Know”, which ships turned off, warned that he was about to discard old unsaved work in about 45 files.
What it changes for you
If you only chat with Claude on the website or the app, nothing changes. If you use Claude Code, imagine a baker who organizes orders with it: a mod could warn when the conversation is filling up or hold a command that would delete a folder. But the documentation carries a warning the videos skip: a mod runs with your permissions. It can read and write your files, read keys stored on your computer, see everything you type and spend your plan, and it has no sandbox, an isolated box. It is like a browser extension asking for access to everything: only install from people you know. Anthropic teaches how to list what a mod does before installing it, with the command claude plugin validate.
Our take
In 15 minutes, open your browser’s extension list and remove the ones you do not use. Before installing any add-on, ask: what can this read and change?
⚠️ Limits: we tested no mod. Anthropic says it shares the examples as they are, without support, and the documentation page has no date; we used the changelog’s. Latent Space is one person’s experience, not a security audit.
✅ It worked if…you can say, for every connection, what it sees and why it is on.
Open your Google account and look for the Search Services Personalization page. See whether Gmail, Drive or Photos are connected to Search.
Disconnect what you do not really use. If you keep any, decide on purpose and write down why.
Open My Ad Center and check your ad settings.
On a sheet, list the apps and extensions that can reach your email or files. For each, write what it sees and whether you still use it.
Remove whatever has no answer. Then note: what worked, where it got stuck and your verdict.
Hypothetical example, not anyone’s result: a repair shop that keeps quotes in Gmail finds an old extension with inbox access and removes it.
💬 Send it to someone who needs it
Know someone who connected Gmail to everything that popped up? Send this tip: open the Google account, see what is linked to Search and turn off what is not used. It takes a few minutes.
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